


The Lotus Eaters

by baudelaire



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drug Use, Dubious Consent, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baudelaire/pseuds/baudelaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wakes up on the streets of New York in the year 2014 with no recollection of how he got there or who he is. He slips deeper everyday into New York's depraved underground drug scene. His only memory is of a set of blue eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_**It is 1945 and Bucky and Steve are clinging to life.** _

The stinging winter air slaps their cheeks. The cold metal bar they cling to numbs their fingertips. The situation is precarious. Steve sees Bucky's hands slipping off the metal and adrenaline surges through his veins.

**_It is 1945 and Bucky is in danger._ **

"Bucky, grab my hand," Steve shouts against the wind. He tightens his right hand's grip on the metal bar and reaches down as far as he can. His eyes widen at the sight of Bucky's dilated pupils. He is reminded with a jolt of the tabby cat the neighborhood punks drowned for amusement on a particularly oppressive Brooklyn summer day. He had nightmares for days afterwards of the pitiful mewls, the way its wet fur flattened against hollow ribs and hipbones that jutted out of its skin, the way its eyes widened and dilated, the way it frantically clawed at the sloshing sides of the grimy tub that would soon be it's watery sepulcher...

_his eyes his eyes oh jesus christ his eyes_

The wind beats against Bucky's lean body like a rope hanging from a flagpole in a tornado. He reaches up towards Steve even while knowing in the back of his head that he'll never make it. His fingers ache from the cold and the sheer exertion of holding himself up. They slowly begin to slip and he makes one last lunge at Steve's outstretched hands, just wishing to touch Steve one last time, before falling, his hands groping the thin mountain air. The last thing he sees before passing into oblivion is Steve's frantic, tear-streaked face, screaming "Bucky!" into the nothingness that Bucky descends into. Bucky's last thought is of Steve's piercing blue eyes, shining with tears.

**_It is 1945 and Bucky is dead._ **


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky came to on a dirt-packed alley dotted with weeds and the obligatory shattered glass and cigarette butts.

His brain whirred and clicked before he could muster the will to open his eyes. When he did, his head reeled and it was as if a thousand watts had been zapped into his skull. Every nerve in him quivered as he lay frozen on his back on the hard ground, staring with wide eyes at a telephone wire above his head. 

He could _smell_ the putrid garbage mingled with stale cigarette smoke all around him.

He could _feel_ pebbles underneath him poking through his thin, ragged henley shirt.

He could _taste_ the cold, metallic taste of fear in his mouth.

He could _hear_  amuted buzz in the direction of the alley exit.

The realization of his sentience circuited through his body, but it was as if somebody had taken one end of Bucky's brain and unraveled it like a ball of yarn. His arteries pounded and his extremities went cold as his veins directed blood flow to his head. His jaw opened slightly and he began to breathe in shuddering gasps. They grew more and more erratic until began to feel lightheaded.

"What the hell is going on?" ran over and over again in his head like a mantra, tripping and falling over his own thoughts to try and answer the question.

He lay there, eyes wide open and afraid to blink or move, until the gray clouds of dawn gave way to a dismal sky heavy with the smell of rain. The buzz outside of the secluded alley grew louder to accompany the buzz of Bucky's own thoughts which raced at a thousand miles an hour.

He soon became aware of a tingling ache near his left armpit. 

Bucky lifted trembling fingers, his first movement in this strange new world, and brushed them over where his left hand should be. Icy panic gripped him as his fingers searched and searched but found nothing. They slowly fluttered at first but soon began to grasp at the air where his arm should have been until  _oh_

He refused to believe it even though he knew it was true. His hand kneaded the stump disbelievingly as he began to pant with the exertion and shock. Once it began to register, he howled.

He howled the cry of a baby lost in the dark.

He howled the cry of a million mothers with sons brought back home in a box.

He howled the cry of an animal forced to bite its own leg out of a steel trap.

A window slammed open and a voice shouted "Shut the hell up, you goddamn cocksucker!"

Bucky's mouth snapped shut of its own accord and his cries turned to agonized whimpers. He rubbed his stump harder and harder as if to force the arm to regenerate until fainting mercifully back into a black stupor. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Is he awake?"

"I think so."

Bucky woke to muffled whispers. His eyes shot open and the first thing he saw was a pale face tinted yellow from the cheap neon lights hanging around the room. It was framed with firetruck-red curls. Her eyes were wide and inquisitive, like a toddler at the zoo for the first time. The man standing next to her took him in grudgingly with blood-shot eyes and crossed arms.

Bucky pulled the cheap nylon blanket off of his body with his one arm and lunged back.

"God, Nick, you're scaring him," the woman said with a broad smile at the man.

"Oh, stuff it Natasha," the man retorted before lifting a cigarette to his black lips and taking a deep drag. 

"Where the fuck am I," Bucky demanded hoarsely, glowering at the pair.

"Ooo, scary," Natasha simpered. She's all giggles and more than a little tipsy judging from the clear bottle of vodka she brandishes at him. "I like him. Can we keep him?"

Nick gave her a disdainful wave of his hand, smoke trailing from the glowing tip of the cigarette. 

"Club Reed," Nick said, in his gravelly voice. "Pride and joy of New York's underground club scene and home to the biggest goddamn pushover in the world," he said with a pointed look at Natasha.

"He was just laying there, ripe for the picking. Don't act like you didn't see anything in him, Nick," Natasha slurred through the dizzying haze of alcohol.

Bucky watched the easy banter with fear tightening his chest without knowing why. His hand tightened around the blanket as he methodically assessed the situation. He doesn't think that Natasha and Nick are lying; he can hear strange music thumping overhead accompanied by muted cheers. His eyes scanned the room quickly for an exit and possible weapons. All this was done quickly and precisely, as if he's done it a million times before and this realization crossed his thoughts before he dismissed it.

He listened to Nick trying to get through Natasha's inebriated daze and decided to take his chances at escape. He quickly threw his blanket to the side and leapt out of the stiff cot. He might have had a good chance if his traitorous legs hadn't given way and left him sprawled on the ground.

Natasha peered down at him for a second before bursting into raucous laughter. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing, kid," Nick said, with a wide smile. "I don't know where  you think you're planning on running off to, but I can assure you that you won't get anything with one arm that you won't get here."

Bucky paused before pulling himself back up onto the cot gingerly, softly kneading his bruised knees. 

"And just where is 'here'?" Bucky asked softly,  malice edging his tone.

"I told you, didn't I?" Nick scoffed, ignoring the threat in Bucky's voice. "Club Reed." He dropped the cigarette and nonchalantly stamped it under the sole of his black leather boots.

"How did I get here?"

"Found you in the alley behind the club. Natasha thought you were dead until she checked your pulse," Nick said, with a resigned grin and a shake of his head. "Just  _how_ did you get your hands on  _heroin_ , you crazy motherfucker. The fuzz's clamped down on the whole goddamn city and just about every dealer's asshole is puckered up tighter than a drum."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Bucky demanded, utterly confused.

"I mean what I said. Natasha found you sleeping in the alley, getting chummy with the cigarette butts and ant and dragged you in here through the back door... **completely disregarding** the fact that a **homeless heroin junkie** with **a missing arm** isn't exactly **best buddy material** ,"punching out the words like a typewriter with sticky keys and punctuating each phrase with a cold glare at Natasha, who stood watching, swaying slightly and giggling.

Bucky stared at Nick with a look in his eyes as if to say 'prove it.' They hold out the staring match for a few seconds longer before Nick finally gave in with a sigh. He bent down to roll up Bucky's dirt-crusted sleeve. Bucky drew his arm back quickly and danger flashed in every angle of his sharp face.

"Jesus, take it easy," Nick said, backing off. 

Bucky didn't take his eyes off Nick and Natasha as he deftly pulled up his sleeve. Nick snorted and Bucky quickly threw a glance at his arm. There was a small, purple bruise around a pockmark of skin on the inside of his elbow and Bucky drew in a sharp breath. 

"I think you broke him," Natasha whispered loudly to Nick.

"Oh, for Gods sake," Nick snapped before placing a heavy shoulder on Bucky's bony shoulder to stop him. "You okay?"

Bucky gave a hollow chuckle at the thought of how beyond 'okay' he was.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky sat on the cot, studying the bruise on the inside of his arm. The strangest thing about it was that he knew that he would never have willingly injected himself.

Heroin had been on the rise in New York back when he shared a cramped three room apartment with Steve. He had bummed 15 milligrams off a freckled, red-haired boy who looked like he hadn’t had a proper meal in weeks. He walked back home in the sweltering August heat, powder packet clenched in his sweaty palm. The boy had told him that it could be snorted or injected, but needles and syringes were in short supply and harder to obtain.

Once he got home, Bucky tore a page out of an old poetry volume of Steve’s to snort the floury powder.

In his excitement, he hadn’t heard Steve pick the book up behind him and follow him towards their shared bedroom.

“Bucky, did you rip a page out of-“

Bucky’s hand froze in midair and his eyes snapped to Steve. Steve stopped dead in his tracks.

“James Buchanan Barnes, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Steve’s voice had adopted an even tone, as if he was merely asking Bucky to pass the salt.

“I, uh…”

Steve briskly strode to Bucky, swept the crystalline powder into his hand, and walked to the bathroom without breaking stride. Bucky, still frozen, heard a muted flush and his heart sunk to the bottom of his stomach. He could live with not trying the drug, but having to endure Steve’s disappointment was absolute hell. Bucky heard the squeak of the tap being turned on and the faint splashing noises of Steve washing his hands.

Despite himself, Bucky chuckled softly at the thought of Steve scrubbing his palms and in between his fingers vigorously with soap, as he was undoubtedly doing.

“Mind sharing what you think is so funny about all of this?” Steve snapped, sounding for all the world like Bucky’s old schoolmarm.

“Aw, come on, Steve,” Bucky said sullenly, the smile melting on his face. “Heroin isn’t dangerous. They sell it at the hospital, for God’s sakes.”

“Yeah? Well, you wanna know who they sell it to? Have you seen Pete down at the grocery store lately? He looks like he’s kissing his grave at 30, and I’ll be damned if I let that happen to you.”

“Can’t bear to part with my devilishly good looks?” Bucky said with a deviant grin.

Steve knit his lips together, refusing to give Bucky the pleasure of smiling.

“Jesus, Bucky,” Steve said with a heavy sigh.

“Oh, don’t be like that. Look, I promise not to do it again,” Bucky said. He walked up to Steve and tousled his hair. “Although it wouldn’t have hurt to try it just _once.”_

Steve glared up at Bucky and saw the twinkling in his eyes.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

“You’re going to live with me forever and make sure I don’t kill myself,” Bucky said, digging his knuckles into Steve’s skull until Steve yelped “Truce!”

Something was definitely off, but Bucky just wearily added it to the list of thing that didn’t make sense. It was growing quite long.

As odd as Natasha and Nick were, Bucky couldn’t help but feel like he could trust the two. They had a way of bumbling about them that made it seem like serendipity smiled down on them constantly, but reality proved stronger than the illusion. They were no better off than him, when he really thought about it. They were all in the dingy basement of a club that never slept, and true, Bucky did have one less arm than the rest of them, but it hardly seemed to matter anymore.

A bone-weariness overtook him and he laid back on the creaky cot, studying with half-lidded eyes at Nick and a nearly sober Natasha speak rapidly, throwing furtive glances at him now and again.

He could hardly muster the strength to care. He felt as if the sap had been drained out of his body, and it was not long before he fell into a dreamless sleep.

When Bucky woke, he found that someone had tucked the blanket back around him. It only covered him from his neck to his knees, but it hardly mattered. The basement wasn’t drafty, and it seemed clean enough. There wasn’t any mold growing on the walls or cobwebs waving from the ceilings, which Bucky figured was good enough for anybody.

_I guess a body really can get used to even hanging_ , Bucky thought bitterly. He scanned the room and only saw Nick sprawled on the hard floor, his coat servicing as a pillow.

“Where’s Natasha?” Bucky asked. His voice sounded strangely hollow in the fluorescent emptiness of the room and he was suddenly stricken with the urge to scream.

“She’s on right now. She’ll be down soon.” Nick’s muffled voice came out from his coat, where his head was buried.

“Down from wh-“

Bucky was cut off with a loud bang from a door concealed in the concrete wall he hadn’t seen before. His first instinct was to throw his blanket off and square his shoulders menacingly.

Natasha gave him a look and sighed.

“That won’t do you a whole lot of good if you can’t walk, buddy.”

He slowly put it down and took in the sight before him. Natasha was primped from head to toe, oozing sex and the musky smell of cigarettes. A black, skin-tight bodysuit hugged all her curves. Around her waist was a chunky belt accessorized with extremely realistic looking guns and bullets.

She began to pull money from between her belt and waist the second she shut the door behind her. There wasn’t a single bill under ten dollars. She shed the money like a second skin onto the floor. He stared in disbelief, trying to calculate how long it would have taken him and Steve to earn that amount before killing that thought with a pang of regret. _He’s fucking dead, you idiot. Not even the super-serum could have saved him from that fall._

“Ha ha! You done good today, Natasha!” Nick said, suddenly wide awake. He scrambled for the money, counting it quickly despite Natasha’s derisive snort.

“Who the fuck are you people?” Bucky said in a quiet, almost reverent, tone.

Nick and Natasha exchanged a quick look.

“Do the words ‘Club Reed’ mean anything to you?” Natasha asked disbelievingly

“Should it?” Bucky replied.

“Jesus H. Christ, say it ain’t so. The poor kid’s been living under a rock,” Nick said with a mock-sorrowful bow of the head.

Natasha gave Bucky a slow one-over before her eyes softened at his gaunt, huddled figure on the cot, completely oblivious. It dawned on her that she didn’t even know his name.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

“Why the fuck should I tell you that?” he said, his guard instantly up.

“Gee, I don’t know. Why should you?” Natasha said with a crooked grin and a sweeping gesture around the room.

 Bucky’s neck prickled in frustration. He toyed briefly with the idea lying but decided against it. There just wasn’t any reason to.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he said

“That’s a mouthful. How does…Bucky sound? Bucky, Bucky, Bucky.” Natasha rolled the name around in her mouth. “I like it,” she finally declared.

“Oh, isn’t that sweet. Why don’t we all sit around and sing Kumbaya while we’re at it?” Nick said, eyes rolling. “ _I’m_ going to ask the real questions. How did you lose your arm?”

Natasha bristled and retorted “God, Nick. You don’t just ask people how they lost their arm.”

“And why the fuck not? You know you want to know too, and I won’t have secrets as long as he’s going to stay here, so out with it.”

Bucky glanced at both of them and looked down at his single hand before replying, “I don’t know.”

“You lost your arm.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know how.”

“…Yes.”

Nick stared at Bucky for a second before collapsing into laughter so hard that he began to wheeze. Natasha shot him her dirtiest look, which only made him laugh harder.

“You…you lost…your lost your goddamn arm...you just…you just lost it…is that what you’re trying to say…” Nick managed to ask amid bursts of laughter.

Bucky waited for the laughter to die down before replying “Yes” as coldly as he could, which set Nick off again, slapping his knees.

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that, Nick,” Natasha said matter-of-factly.

“I do, thanks,” Nick replied, drying his eyes. “But really, Bucky. What happened to your arm?”

The question triggered a million thoughts which raced through Bucky’s head. _Can I trust these people? What if they think I’m crazy? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

The thoughts stopped as suddenly as they started. He realized that putting all things into perspective, even if he _did_ tell the truth, neither Nick nor Natasha would believe him. Besides, it wasn’t as if they could do anything to him that could worsen his situation.

After a pause, he started talking

“I was enlisted to the war and I was on a reconnaissance mission where I was thrown off of a train. I should have died, but the next thing I knew, I was back in New York in the alley Natasha found me in,” he said quietly. “Minus an arm, that is.” He decided to leave any mention of Captain America out of his story. Steve was all his.

He looked up from his lap and saw Nick shoot a strange look at Natasha, who was peering intently into Bucky’s face. They sat without talking for a while, the only sound being the pounding music that permeated the ceiling of the basement.

Just when the silence was starting to become unbearable, Nick cleared his throat and gruffly said, “I’m not sure yet what kind of crazy you are, but I don’t think you’re the dangerous kind. You can stay. It isn’t exactly a five-star hotel, but me and Natasha have gotten along well enough so far.”

All remaining hostility Bucky had felt before towards the two slowly vanished, like a huge pink eraser rubbing off pencil marks and leaving behind a clean sheet. A wide smile blossomed on his face. Natasha gave him a bright grin back.

“Jesus, kid. You found out that your arm was missing just yesterday in a goddamned alley.”

From his tone, Bucky knew that Nick didn’t believe his story, but he decided that it was probably safer that way.

“I guess I’m my own brand of crazy,” Bucky said, smiling so widely his cheeks hurt.


End file.
